Engine Fire Leads This Porsche 991 C4S To Highway Meltdown

6Speed forum user JonnyC narrowly escaped danger when his 991 burst into flames.

In a recent thread within the 6SpeedOnline forums, poster JonnyC described watching his 10,000-mile 991 Carrera 4S burn down into a pile of molten metal. It took him a few months to post up the thread, as this actually occurred over Christmas last year. The car was in for a service at Jonny’s local dealership, and to get a set of winter tires swapped on so he could continue driving the car over the cold months. When the service was complete, Jonny picked up the car and drove away. As he says, only a few miles and a few minutes down the road, he was taking the picture you see above.

Being that the car had just left the dealer’s care, your immediate conclusion is that this was the result of some shop technician committing some error or another. There’s a reason you always go with your gut. After the car and flames had been properly doused, a forensic inspection of the car was conducted and allegedly concluded that “non-native fibers” in the engine compartment were a potential originator of the blaze. The going theory here is that someone left a rag in the engine compartment and it kick-started this whole flame process.

Now comes the hard part. Jonny continues his post by claiming that the dealer’s insurance company doesn’t want to pick up the whole check, and is offering a low-end-of-the-spectrum market value payout, minus a completely arbitrary $4,000 ‘salvage value’ for what remains of the car. Now, I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t look like anything left to salvage in our eyes. As a side note, it’s worth mentioning that Jonny scores automatic points with us for using a set of OZ Ultraleggera HLT wheels for his winter tires. A hard pill to swallow, indeed.

Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. Here is the real salt rubbed into the wound: Later in the thread, Jonny notes that he is still receiving completely unrelated mailers from the very same dealership for a discounted oil change. It doesn’t matter where you fall on this issue, that’s morbidly funny.